Generation Snowflake

I trust everyone had a good Yuletide. Except for a bout of an intestinal bug, I did as well.

I’d have liked to have started the New Year with an essay about something momentous but instead, I want to get a few last licks in about our decrepit culture.

We know that the election of Donald Trump has caused paroxysms of rage. But there’s a reason for that. And I believe it’s because younger people have been molly-coddled beyond all reasonable bounds of propriety. Having said that, there’s nothing like a little mockery every now and then to put the Crybullies into place.

Now, I know that it’s the wont of every generation to look down on the next. I felt the sting of my father’s disapproval more than a few times growing up. And it was deserved. Unlike my father, who had to trap rabbits as a young boy in order to provide for his family in war-ravaged Greece, I never knew a hungry day in my life.

And of course we were rebellious. We demanded to grow our hair long and viewed it as a crime against humanity if we were deprived of his precious right. I’ll never forget watching The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, you’d have thought by my dad’s and grandpa’s reactions that the world had turned upside down. We never realized how good we had it. Whenever the older generation threw the Depression in our face (or Guadalcanal), we knew we were wrong but we still resented it. Their hardness in the presence of tribulation was a just rebuke to us. There was no way we could compete.

But compared to this generation? Omigod! These people are beyond contempt. They make us Baby Boomers look like titans. These weaklings would’ve fainted during a panty raid. They get “triggered” every time somebody points anything that offends their silly little pieties, even obvious realities.

I imagine that the Lord in His mercy will send a cataclysm which will restore the proper balance of things soon enough. Think of it as Cosmic Darwinism.

Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful year!

Comments

  1. Nate Trost says

    George Michalopulos wrote:
    I imagine that the Lord in His mercy will send a cataclysm which will restore the proper balance of things soon enough. Think of it as Cosmic Darwinism.

    Well, maybe not even requiring the divine:

    The President-elect:

    “You know what solves it?” he said of America’s sorry state. “When the economy crashes, when the country goes to total hell and everything is a disaster. Then you’ll have a [chuckles], you know, you’ll have riots to go back to where we used to be when we were great.” Donald Trump, Fox News, February 2014

    And a key adviser:

    “Then we had a long talk about his approach to politics. He never called himself a “populist” or an “American nationalist,” as so many think of him today. “I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed.

    Shocked, I asked him what he meant.
    “Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Bannon was employing Lenin’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press.” Steve Bannon, November 2013 (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/22/steve-bannon-trump-s-top-guy-told-me-he-was-a-leninist.html)

    Be careful what you wish for, you might get it! You may not survive it, but you might get it!

    • George Michalopulos says

      I don’t “wish” for a cataclysm, Nate. I’m a Christian. I pray –every moment of every day for mercy. Unfortunately, I’m not presumptuous enough to believe that there is no cosmic justice and that God’s wrath can be contained forever.

      Think long and hard Nate about your obeisance to the pieties of this age. And where it leads to.

    • Estonian Slovak says

      Well, then you do agree that the destruction of Tsarist Russia was a bad thing? There’s hope for you, yet!

      • They have trouble identifying what they are fighting against because it is in plain sight and they have been brainwashed to overlook it. What they are fighting against is the pseudo-egalitarian Fem/Perv Borg. That is the “Tsar” which “Leninist” Bannon seeks to overthrow. What else could it be?

  2. Speaking as a Millennial, rest assured that many of us despise our cogenerationalists as much as you do.

    But the ones I really fear for are Gen Z’ers, who have no living memory of a relatively normal society. There has always been a gradual downward slump in society, and as you said, the older generation always laments for the newer, but sometime around 9/11 things really changed.

    Kids growing up in, say, 1880 did not have an extremely different experience from someone growing up in 1900. But life in the 2010s is vastly different from the 1990s. The lack of common life experience is going to make inter-generational understanding increasingly impossible, and it will lead to real social instability, I’m afraid.

    Thank God for the Church, which is steady and solid in the midst of these changing times. May it always be.

  3. If I had a nickel for every time my father yelled at me to lower the “trello music”(crazy music), well you know. If our world can survive another fifty years, I fear where the new norms will be. Scary indeed!

  4. Yeah, George, that about sums it up: Generation snowflake.

    I’ve considered the other possibility: That there is a God, but we live in His Deist construction. I.e., He is hands off after programming it and letting it run. That is possible. Either way, the eventualities I have described materialize. It’s just that in the Deistic contingency, there are no overt miracles, just a slide into a perpetual Messianic Age where we overcome death and all other human problems. It’s still patriarchal. That’s programmed into the system. No getting around that.

    In the Deistic contingency, the afterlife is essentially a dissolving of individual consciousness into the Consciousness of the Godhead. Thus, we are granted to be individuals here on earth for an earthly life, but our only immortality is that of God Himself. In that sense, Orthodoxy would be the completion of Hinduism, resolving all glitches.

    I prefer to stick with the faith of the Creed. However, if the Deistic version is reality, I can certainly live with that too. By no means does it signify that Orthodoxy is false. Just the opposite. Orthodoxy would be the highest reach of deistic mysticism.

    That is more in line with Plotinus, however.

    I think I will remain an Orthodox Christian.

    http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/99957.htm

    http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/99973.htm

    “I am an optimist—an Orthodox Christian cannot be a pessimist. Christians should mourn only over their sins. If a person entrusts his destiny to God’s care he begins to build his life according to divine laws, his soul is cleansed of sins more thoroughly, he sees God more clearly, and the future no longer looks hopeless and bleak. At the end of the darkest tunnels of despair, a Christian always sees God.” – Met. Onufry of Kiev

    Behold what the Fem/Pervs have caused to be inflicted on the innocent:

    http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/crime/227116738-story

  5. Please check out my blog : jmcsclassics.com and let me know what you think. Thank you George for your help at setting it up. Christ is born!-Glorify Him!

  6. Please check out my blog: jmcsclassics.com and let me know what you think. thank you George for your advice ate setting it up.

  7. When Clinton won his first term two years later the Democrats lost majorities in the House
    and Senate. Then Bill came up with the profound “revelation” it’s “The Economy Stupid.”
    With Newt Gingrich telling him, “yeah, that’s WHAT it is” they signed “The Contract With
    America.” Lower taxes. Less business regulation for smaller capitalization companies. Always at least some small little lip service to smaller government. Then Obama, majorities
    in Congress all gone. Second year in office. Lost seats in House and Senate and had to do a
    lot of his legislation by executive order like the Tsars. GREAT.

    Now we see what happens in 2 years. My “crystal ball” tells me the Dems lose more House
    and Senate seats.

    So Trump gets outstanding GOP Congress “Filibuster proof” United States deposing the likes of Nancy Pelosi she stammers awfully trying
    to still rally the troops, but with Trump it will be different. He will be
    TRIUMPHANT. Democrats will lose more seats in house and senate.
    Dam party will go to an all time low. Should be like 13% or so. At that
    point America starts becoming GREAT again!

    • Reason why the Democrats lose seats mid-term 2018 and 2020
      simply because Trump’s business approach and independence
      of the lobbyists makes Government look competent, like an old
      coin, rarest mercury head dime probably the first year it had a
      San Francisco mint mark, S .. or a “silver certificate” one dollar
      bill remember when they were in circulation as a kid and the 50
      cent piece if you were old enough, you would need to be about
      116 today, as a kid, you could of had a Liberty Half Dollar in your
      change.

      give us a week or two in Oakland California all the down and
      outers are gonna figure their do’n better under Trump. Jobs.
      Hope.

    • People will quickly become disenfranchised with Trump. Give it 18 months.

      • http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_HACKING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-01-06-15-29-21

        Read the story carefully. What it amounts to is that the report offered lacked exposure of methods and sources. Put another way, they believe that the Russians did it because they were motivated to do it, certainly put out propaganda regarding the election and had the means, but they can’t say exactly where it came from, exactly who did it from what server in what office. There’s no trail, everything is completely circumstantial.

        And that means that though they’d like for it to have been the Russians, and the Russians certainly benefited from it, they simply don’t know.

        They don’t know because they can’t trace it to source.

        And that’s that.

        Further reading:

        http://nypost.com/2017/01/04/the-left-and-right-are-having-a-meltdown-over-russia/

        https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/american-unintelligence-on-russia-op-ed-56746

        • Nothing politically more stupid than marrying Assange and divorcing a couple thousand ex-military intelligence officers.

          Especially when it wasn’t needed.

          Eat feet.

          • McAfee said it couldn’t possibly be the RF given what was presented by the FBI:

            http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/mcafee-antivirus-founder-russia-did-not-hack-dnc-video/ri18404

            Unless, of course, the FSB intended to leave a business card, in which case they could have simply allowed it to be traced to a server under their control.

            • Juicy.

              The guy that sells you computer protection software comments that he alone understands all.

          • Anonymous,
            Ask Iraqis, our veterans missing limbs or mentally disabled, and the parents, relatives, and friends of our dead veterans, how they feel about our intelligence officers opinions!

            Weapons of mass destruction my ass! You keep believing in what our government intelligence feeds you!

            • Fully trusting neither the Intelligence agencies nor Assange while using both to glean information would seem to be the wisest course of action. Both have useful information carefully selected, sifted, and framed into a narrative. The trick is to glean the former without getting sucked in by the latter. We too easily get sucked in to the narratives that we are predisposed to believe because they serve the perceived need of the moment.

              • Thankfully most of us can read between the lines. Assange did us a great favor exposing the Clintons. Russians were doing what we would expect . Our intel guvs were also doing their usual spin. Supporting whoever fills their pockets. Thankfully change is coming very soon. Watch how quick the spinsters change their tune when Trump takes charge.

                • Assange has outed US intelligence officers. How you can be grateful to him is shameful.

                  Trump doesn’t need to say anything other than the people have spoken. He is a fool for being defensive on this issue.

                  • George Michalopulos says

                    Anon, a lot of what passes for intel these days is political and provocational. While I respect those well-meaning people who work in and for the government, we should never blind ourselves to the probability that there are people who act in bad faith. And who are goading us into unnecessary conflicts. That too is a type of moral treason.

                    • Now you are pushing the dirtpile around. When I sweep, I like to pick it up.

                      Trump is petty. He responds to too many little things and speaks foolishly as a result.

                      Let me be clear, Assange is a traitor. Hannity will never play on my tv again.

                    • George Michalopulos says

                      Assange can’t be a traitor: he’s an Australian.

                    • If a foreigner from a disinterested nation outs our foreign intelligence officers; he is a traitor.

                      Had he done to Russia what he did to us; he’d be deceased.

      • You mean “entitlements or is it non-entitlements?” No one will lose safety-net benefits or see cuts. The parasites might get “disenfranchised” like Pentagon defense contractors and Universities charging hundreds of thousands for tuition banking on student loan programs. Planned Parenthood hopefully also gets “disenfranchised” and then all the bureaucratic agencies Ron Paul would have eliminated and the Texas Governor Perry could not remember they will get a pay cut. Thats O.k. Some “disenfranchising” here and there might help with the 20 Trillion in Debt Obama leaves behind.

        Obama is baffled, all he knows is bail-outs, Trump knows how to keep companies in America, US. Can you imagine Obama negotiating a company to keep manufacturing in the US? Not his skill set. He has no clue. Never ran a business. Obama’s skill set is entertaining at the White House Hollywood celebrities, athletes and fundraisers.

        To become “disenfranchised” you have to be “enfranchised” to begin with. All his fawning millennials are all broke, in debt, most of them can’t afford “Obamacare” and they will have their tax refund garnished to pay the penalty tax, “Individual Mandate,” talk about disenfranchisement! There is nothing to “disenfranchise” but the special interests and lobbyists Trump will sweep and drain, at least some number of them, anyway 18 months sounds good. Get rid of more neo-dem-con seats. Won’t make Congress “great” however improved and the Chuck Schumer clowns dwindled down to a “super-minority.”

        • I had a dream some little while back and Barrack Obama was standing around our kitchen sink at the old house and I had some discussion with him. I saw him before in
          a dream so in this one we were already acquainted. I knew he was the President so
          I was deferential but had to explain to him also I am Orthodox and have to try to follow Gospel Teaching and anyway we could of covered other topics .. but our
          conversation lasted some while, I had to respect and actually like him, at a personal level, he listened,
          maybe even been in agreement actually with some of my point of view ..

          • One time St. John of Kronstadt was asked his opinion about “Democracy?”
            His answer: Democracy is below, Kingdom above.

            So restoration of a Russian Monarchy sure, but then the U.S. also needs an
            Orthodox Monarch. U.S.A. becomes an Orthodox Christian Monarchy. Its
            not “president” and its not “tsar” its “PZAR” or prez-tsyar we need here next
            in US. Trump is a start.

            • George Michalopulos says

              Cy, another problem with democracy at least as practiced on a would-be nationalist/continental scale, is that it makes it nearly impossible to elect leaders who are better than the electees. A Churchill is a rarity. The ancient Greeks learned this early on and kept democracy as local as possible and heavily restricted the franchise. At least then, only those who were resolute, free-born and courageous males could vote, instead of malingerers, con-men, and ill-informed.

              • The real problem is the binary thinking. You can have a representative apparatus underneath a strong executive. That’s not really a problem so long as it doesn’t get in the way of basic functions.

                The problem was the partisanship that divided the ideological spectrum between redistributors in the Democratic Party and traditional moralists in the Republican Party. That was the wedge necessary for the devil to do his work. Bear in mind, we are not talking about Marxism. That’s not on the table. We’re talking about enough redistribution to share the spoils of capitalism up and down the economic hierarchy. Think of a pyramid where everybody is taken care of and the entire pyramid rises in real terms economically. One can even change ones place on the pyramid with enough ingenuity, talent and effort. But it is a pyramid. That’s how human society looks in a world with limited resources.

                All men are not created equal. That is a legal fiction. Of course, we should be equal under the law, no one is disputing that. But equality works both ways. Both the rich and the poor have an equal right to sleep under bridges. But it seems like the poor are more likely to take advantage of this right.

                The better is sometimes the enemy of the good and the best is sometimes the enemy of the better. Hierarchy is natural. Equality is unnatural and uncommon. It’s only real use is to apply to men in the narrow sense that we all answer to the same law in a representative society. Yet even with that, there will be unequal incomes and unequal deployment of power through elections. You can’t have a referendum on every little decision.

                Really, it’s all common sense.

                The God-Man told us what to do when He rehabilitated His servant, Peter: “Feed my sheep.”

  8. It’s slowly sinking in to Pat, here’s his take:

    http://buchanan.org/blog/liberal-democracy-endangered-species-126366

    Wonder how long it will take the Republican Party to catch up?

  9. Yep, here it comes, demonic possession. I hate it when I’m right:

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/01/06/ft-lauderdale-shooting-suspect-made-confused-visit-to-fbi-said-us-intelligence-forced-him-to-watch-isis-videos.html

    And, of course, it is no coincidence:

    http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-putin-and-the-big-hack

    The chessboard unfolds . . .

    And I’m sure this is being voiced in the Kremlin:

    “Что ж, теперь американцы понимают опасности вмешательства во внутренние дела другого государства.”

    Да приидет Царствие Твое . . .

    • The reality is this guy should have had his guns taken and been required to adjudicate ofr relief. Why the state should have to adjudicate for his gun after he walks into the fbi and tells them he is getting messages from isis speaks to freedom run amok.

      • The FBI certainly dropped the ball, I agree. Mentally ill, gov’t control, forcing him to watch ISIS, 9mm . . . this isn’t rocket science. These are the same people screaming, “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!!!”, incidentally.

        It’s probably a bad idea for mentally ill people who feel attracted to ISIS to own weapons. I think you, me and Ann Coulter can all agree on that.

  10. Blithely, ignoring the Permian extinction in the room, will not make our real delima go away. Politics has no answer to 100’s of thousands of gigatons of frozen methane being extremely rapidly melted and released into the oceans and atmosphere. Addressing Heaven only shows 3 bowls of God’s wrath as It’s answer. Pick a fight with the Holy God and the Holy Trinity will kick your ____ all the way into the eternal lake of fire. If I did not believe the science now being done concerning the global ice melting and the ocean warm up, I still do believe the Holy Scripture and about the 2nd and 3rd bowls of God’s wrath. It just so happens, they describe the same thing. Time is getting extremely short as this could qualify as sudden destruction. The mark is here, except for the occult worship which Pope Francis is trying cram down Orthodox throats.

  11. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/business/media/trump-media-news-conference.html?_r=0

    This is getting too delicious for words. It’s like grilled salmon with mango sauce to my little feline palate.

    I’m really starting to like this Trump fellow.

  12. Peter A. Papoutsis says

    Anonymous says:
    January 14, 2017 at 10:53 am
    If a foreigner from a disinterested nation outs our foreign intelligence officers; he is a traitor.

    Had he done to Russia what he did to us; he’d be deceased.
    —————–

    Are you talking about Obama?

  13. I waiting for Trump to built his Theosidan Wall. He wants a strong defense.

    • The current rate of illegal immigration is nearly zero.

      You think it will be fiscally responsible to spend 100 billion dollars on something defeatable by a ladder that impacts almost zero people?

      Not the least bit conservative.

      Not to mention Reagan.

      Tear down this wall.

      The wall is an absolute shameful abomination and the sole reason I hate Trump.

      If the wall gets built, I will make it a life goal for its demolition and I will work against every Congressman who approves it.

      They picked your fruit you have put in your mouth.

      • George Michalopulos says

        Your numbers regarding illegal immigration are bogus and you know it. The INS has redefined “deportation” as merely stopping illegal aliens at the border and turning them back right then.

        While it is true that the numbers have been down for 2 years, that’s only because economic “growth” has been so insipid that most don’t even bother to come. Still some do.

        • Bogus my arse!

          The numbers on illegal immigration for 2015 are pretty much at zero. In fact, the government says more people were deported than overran visas. I think it was by about 100,000. So, if you give the 100,000 as illegal border crossers, you have a net zero. The illegal immigration is so close to zero now it is almost funny Trump got away with the wall argument to the baby boomers. They are an easy target with subjective nonfacts. Oh, jeepers George, you are a boomer I bet.

          You will spend 50-100 billion dollars to stop nothing. And that 100 billion dollars can be beat by two aluminum ladders. And the people that came here illegally in the first place picked your food that all of you baby boomers have been eating for years and years. And they cleaned your bedsheets in hotel rooms. And they roofed your homes.

          But still you are too blind to see.

          Build that wall and I guarantee you, before you perish from this earth, it will be demolished by the other party because it is a wall of shame.

          • George Michalopulos says

            You know, it’s stuff like this that gives sophistry a bad name.

            Are you honestly going to tell me that there are no illegal aliens in America today?